The Daily News. THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1910. THE SPIRIT OF EMULATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 393, 19 May 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1910. THE SPIRIT OF EMULATION.

The spirit of emulation keeps mankind in good fettle. The person who day r oy day merely does his small job, travels in the same furrow, without hope or expectation of better times, better sitiil, and added comfort, i. 9 a poor mortal.' Although the spirit of emulation is 'hardly encouraged by some modern labor conditions, it is impossible for legislation to entirely kill it. That is to say, even though a workman in a specific line had no earthly chance of earning more than the stupidest of his mates, he will still emulate men of higher attainment than himsdf for personal satisfaction. Absolutely the outstanding reason for all games is that it is good for one man to beat another at them. From marbles to football and fiom football to statesmanship, evenphase of life is dominated and controlled by the spirit of emulation. If it were absent there would be no football and no party politics, Mr. Masse? would discontinue believing he was a better politician than Sir Joseph Ward, and everybody would settle down into a dreadful apathy. Apathy j s dissolution, and dissolution is decay. Yesterday we published a telegram setting out that the ~° f P ° StS and Tel< * ra P h * instituted a system of prize-givin* to encourage officers to take added interest 11 k® lr . W( *rk and to suggest methods of most admirable branch of the public service V 6W Zeaknd - This, of course, is a scheme of the highest excellence for it may discover geniuses in the 'service m o have had no encouragement to dovelop their talent. Just as "every «,]. dier has a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack," sc may every worker in the worst paid professions or callings have he germ of a fortune about him. In . mere exereis e of a man's daily calling, during which he can be only judged J the work he is doing, the chances tor distinction are, few. Work is so specialised,' nowadays that one worker may spend his whole working life j n the per of the same weary task. Millions of workers the worla over make the one physical movement all day and every day, every week, during, all the years between school and the grave There is therefore, no spur to originy of thought or action in the mere °mg of a daily mechanical task, and IhereT 6 there ls money ln i<k , ag and of a long-handled, shovel may possess as good ideas as the Prime Minister of England, the spirit of enterprise and' emulation is being stirred everywhere. In America th, Le suggestion of the humblest worker if his employers are convinced of its' value, may lead to the total revolution of a huge business. The simplification of a device in one of the great lumber mills near Seattle five years- ago led to the practical destruction and re-erection of plant worth many millions of dollars. The cause of this rearrangement was * ei 'S hteen > whose business in life was to move a lever six inches forward and Sl x inches back during nine hours ; had sim, P ] y his idea into the "suggestion box." England, although It makes things better than any other country on earth, i s always accused of being conservative in her methods, hut in the Northern cotton mi s, m the great eutleiy wottas of Sheffield, , n the Black Country, and, indeed, in nearly all the manufacturing territory, the masters gladly listen to the suggestion of their employes. On the Continent the masters give their people r C ;y o 'PP°rtunity to evolve ideas 'by technical training and by scientific instruction. That New Zealanders are essentially an inventive people is to be seen in any list of new patents. There are few countries whose people have more workable ideas to the square inch of brain t'han New Zealand, We do n«t know whether the average New Zealand master would confess that his office-bov might possess an idea worth millions, or that he himself need not necessarily have so brilliant a mind as his junior clerk. But such things are possible. As far as the State service is concerned, it seems that the emulative system now established in the Post Office is the only sample of its kind. It i* reasonable that the busiest men should take the most interest in their calling and its improvement. If the system were introduced into some Government Departments, the person who suggested any new ideas for the destruction of circumlocution would be exceedingly unpopular. Circumlocution is good for the support of ia large number of folk, but it is death on ideas. The tired person who has very little to do and who hates to do it has a brain go torpid that if it contained any ideas they could not escape. So the State might extend the splendid system introduced into the Post Office and put a "suggestion box" into some of the other Departments. It is probable tiliat the system was inaugurated because of the success of a stamp-vending machine invented by a postal officer and by the stampingmachine .introduced by another officer. If the State probed the brains of more of its servants, many who spend a life in licking stamps or posting letters might awake to the fact that ideas have j been locked up in their heads for years.'